A selection of our success stories

Requirement

The school was adding a three-storey extension to its premises, but realised its existing Alcatel phone system would not be able to accommodate the additional capacity it now required. Heckmondwike needed a solution that could accommodate analogue, digital and IP phones, was expandable and did not cost the earth. "We also wanted the ability to manage the system ourselves and have the existing phone wire birds nest of cables patched professionally," explains Jim Nobbs, Heckmondwike Grammar School's eLearning and Systems Manager.
The school also placed great importance on project ownership, from the start of the installation to completion, with the ongoing care and support thereafter a crucial factor. As such, it partnered with local telecoms reseller, Russell Telecom, which has more than 25 years experience with other schools.

Solution

The firm carried out a detailed evaluation of the school's communications needs and found that the new building was only connected via fibre optic cable, and as such, required a VoIP solution. However, as it would prove too costly to deploy VoIP throughout the entire school, Russell Telecom provided a hybrid solution in the form of the NEC SV8100, a feature-rich business telephone system with a range of digital and IP phones.
By providing display handsets, Russell Telecom ensures that users benefit from the comprehensive functionality of the NEC SV8100 system, and its implementation of the hybrid system means that the user experience is the same across all extensions. This also guarantees that the management of the system remains simple.

When NOVA International, the organisation behind the “Great North Run” wanted to bring its IT and Telecommunication networks in line with the rest of the forward thinking ethos of the company, it turned to its longstanding Telecom partner, Russell Telecom for advice and recommendations.

IT manager, Jimmy Jones, said of the companies decision to look at the way the company communicated “we had built up a good relationship with Russell Telecom over a lot of years of working together so we thought that was as good a place as any to start investigating what was cutting edge in the world of Telecoms”

With the assistance of account manager Lawrence McCaughey, who already understood the situation with the current telephone system as he had personally specified the digital Toshiba telephone system over 12 years ago, and working together with Jimmy was able to quickly understand the long term IT / Telecom requirements for NOVA International, was then in a position to propose a Toshiba VOIP telecom platform.

Jimmy said “with the help of Russell Telecom we have rolled out across the company a Toshiba CIX670 IP solution with IP handsets for everybody, self management software to keep the system upto date and provide complete manageability, centralised voice mail which has improved the whole communication system as well as creating the opportunity of having staff working from home with remote IP phones and still being an integral part of the business.

Lawrence explained “ we were delighted to be given the opportunity to continue and develop our long standing business relationship with such a high profile name as the Great North Run, we feel that NOVA International stands for everything Russell Telecom are about, a long standing successful and trustworthy company based in the North of England.

Brief Overview

Dr Jones & Partners are a well established GPs practice with 4 sites located in the Sedgefield area of County Durham, the 4 sites are located approximately 3-4 miles apart from each other but from a communications perspective they were miles apart, Russell Telecom had supplied and maintained the telephone system in each of the locations and had a good understanding of the previous communication methods.
Practice Manager Colin Miller said “we wanted to look at the possibility of making the 4 surgeries able to communicate easier with each other with the added flexibility of calls being answered where the staff were located rather than moving the staff around the branches to accommodate the telephone systems and at the same time reduce the amount of money spent on inter branch telephone calls”

The Proposal

Paul Cassells, the account manager for Dr Jones & Partners attended several meetings over the space of 12 – 18 months with Colin, his staff and the GPs to allow himself to fully understand the direction that the practice wanted to go with the telephone platform.

Finally, the proposal was to install a new IP compatible NEC Aspire VOIP telephone system into each of the 4 sites, which would include the networking of the sites via VOIP connections to allow free calls and the ability to transfer calls anywhere across the network, calls can now be answered at any site, depending on the opening hours and shift pattern of the staff at the various sites. It was also proposed to provide a complete call recording solution as well a call statistics application across the network, which can provide “as it happens” or “historical” call statistics.

The Solution

“We are now in a position where we are no longer guessing at how many or when we receive or make calls and importantly how good we are at handling incoming calls from our customers, the patients. The ability to speak to all of our sites as if on an internal call makes it feel like we have thrown a blanket over the 4 buildings to make one ” commented Colin after the phased installation had been complete.

Springwood Surgery required a new Telephone System to help increase customer satisfaction levels on their Patient Survey results and to help the practice run more smoothly.

Russell Telecom installed an NEC Aspire- a top of the range Telephone System with an extremely advanced level of call handling options. Call queuing ensures that customers who are waiting on the line more than 3 rings are greeted with a message, that the Surgery recorded, which ensures patients are more likely to stay on the line. In addition because callers are held in true first in first out order it also means that the use of receptionists time is maximized, as they often have a caller on the line waiting as soon as they put the phone down. In addition Springwood Surgery took advantage of the included Auto Attendant, whereby callers are given options such as press 1 to make an appointment, press 2 for prescriptions etc. This allows the Surgery to route the call more effectively and therefore take some of the call volume away from the Receptionists.

The 8 levels of night service mean that the Surgery can have different messages for callers depending on time of day (day, night, lunch time) or time of week, or year (weekend, bank holiday, Xmas), and equally be able to switch off or on call handling options, or make different phones ring, for example.

The included MyCalls software allows the Practice Manager to see at a glance how many calls they have taken that day, how many abandoned calls they have had, how many times of the day all of the lines have been busy (and therefore see how many times callers would have received an engaged tone) and how long callers were on the line, amongst many other things. This allows the Practice Manager to decide how best to manage staff using the Telephone System and how best to set the system up to ensure patients are getting the best service.

Iain Marley, Practice Manager said: “The NEC Aspire Telephone System was an excellent investment. The advanced call handling of the telephone system has really helped the surgery in increasing patient satisfaction when calling in. Russell Telecom were excellent both in helping us choose the right specification of system for us, but also with doing an excellent job installing it, with no disruption to the surgery.”